


Pull Me Back One Last Time

by Lucy31



Series: Prompts [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Romance, Season 6 Episode 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 07:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16192694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy31/pseuds/Lucy31
Summary: Fic request: After the Wild Hunt, on nights Lydia doesn’t stay over at Stiles’ she’ll call to check in and make sure that he’s alright and to see if he needs anything.Written for stydia-fanfiction tumblr





	Pull Me Back One Last Time

_When he first arrived, Stiles had been scared, terrified even. All the other seemed to have sunk into an eerie lethargy and the void expression on their faces made his blood run cold. So, he struggled._

_When he understood where he was and what was going to happen to him, he struggled harder. He had to stay awake, conscious or it would be over for him. He didn’t know why he had that feeling but something deep-rooted inside of him was telling him that if he took the easy option, he wouldn’t be able to come back. He would be erased from the memories and would never be found again._

_He had to resist. Someone would remember him. He had once failed against the Nogitsune but he wouldn’t fail again._

_But even if time didn’t have any leverage on this place, there was something else. A heaviness that would be always harder to withstand, whispering in his ear how easier it would be if he just gave in. So, without even realizing it, he once let that darkness lure him, let his consciousness finally rest. Just for a second, he thought, just to see what would happen. To see if it would ease the pain in his chest, ease the weight of his loneliness that made him sometimes cry without anyone noticing._

_It lasted a few minutes, a few hours or even maybe a few days._

_But he eventually woke up. First, he thought something had happened but the room was still as quiet as before, the faces around him were still emotionless. He didn’t understand right away what had woken him. Nobody ever woke up, except the newcomers sometimes, like that doctor he had seen at the beginning. But even she hadn’t said a word since then._

_He remembered having seen a bird flying above him in the dawning sky, in its blue, pink and orange morning colours. It felt like an eternity ago since the last time he had seen the sky. A pleasant scent he had almost forgotten had filled his nostrils, a mass of tumbling curls had tickled his nose and the most pleasant weight had crushed his chest. A name had made him forget everything else. Lydia. He had seen her smile, heard her laugh, felt her hand in his. The grass had felt so soft under his body… Lifting his head, he had seen her asleep next to him resting on his chest and with blades of grass sticking to her calves. Her steady breathing had soothed him. Above him, the bird had come back, the same that always appeared in his mother’s lullaby. The one that greeted in the morning the well-behaved children who had slept the entire night and wished them a good day at school. The one that had his mother’s voice._

_He didn’t understand what had ripped him from the darkness but every time he would let himself drown, those same visions would always eventually bring him back to the surface._

 

* * *

 

 

The sudden metallic taste in Lydia’s mouth broke her from her trance. She blinked, shook her head and raised a finger to her lower lip. There was nothing, she must not have bit herself too hard. Her phone screen in her left hand was off, the battery had eventually died. In a rage, she threw it on her bed, growling with frustration. The phone bounced once before laying flat on her blue sheets with orange flowers. She had bought them last week on an impulse without knowing why and now, they were painfully reminding her that the boy she loved, the _man_ she loved wasn’t by her side.

She sat on her bed, heaving a deep sigh and took her head in her hands.

 _What’s wrong with you?_ This question kept going round in her head since she had declined Noah’s invitation. He had offered to meet at his house to celebrate the restored peace and Stiles’s return a few hours ago. Stiles… She hadn’t had to look at him to feel his lingering stare on her back and she had fled as fast as her legs had allowed her while trying to hold back her tears.

She had spent months looking for a shadow, the ghost of a memory nobody else but her seemed to have. She had never doubted. Not a single time. Even when she had felt Scott’s sorry gaze upon her. Never had she believed that Stiles wasn’t real. The oceans were drawn to the Moon, even during the day, even when nobody could see it in the sky. They still felt its presence somewhere. That was what Lydia had tirelessly repeated to herself.

And she had been right.

She had found him. _They_ had found him. Her oxygen, her magnetic north, the one who had saved her in every senses of the word. Whatever she was today, she owed it to him. She had learned to listen to him when he told her in his own way that her beauty didn’t just come from her looks but also from her mind and strengths. He had showed her how strong she was, had helped her notice that her scars weren’t disfiguring her and that her knowledge wasn’t isolating her from the others. She had her place somewhere, with them and even with him if she wanted to.

In her own way, she had tried to give him back everything he had given her.

He had understood, he _must_ have understood what she had meant earlier in the locker room. _I didn’t say it back…_

She had told him once that he was the one who always figured things out… But she never expected that sentence to apply to her feelings for him.

He did tell she _didn’t have to_ tell him anything, right? He knew it…

And that kiss… It just happened and she still couldn’t think about it without losing track of time, letting delicious shivers run through her body where his hands had been. She would never forget the noises he had made when she had caught his lips between hers and had stroked his tongue with hers. His taste, his breath filling her mouth and her entire body, giving her cheeks and her tomorrows all their colours back. His hands tightening around her hips or softly stroking her hair and neck. She could still feel the trace of his smile under her fingertips and the spark in his eyes reflecting the moonlight.

_I didn’t say it back._

That was the problem. She had never said anything back to him. _Anything._

Her memories hadn’t all come back right away. The details have been slowly coming back to her and they were the reason why she’d had to dampen her enthusiasm. It was because of them that she said to Noah she had to go home to take care of her sick mother, knowing very well that her mother wasn’t in Beacon Hills. Those _fucking_ details even made her repress the idea, the _need_ to fall asleep next to Stiles, to spend the night nestled against him, safe in his room and wrapped in the warmth of his arms.

Because of those details, she had been staring for what felt like hours at his contact on her phone. She had dared to call him once or twice but had hung up before the first _beep._ After a while, the battery had decided for her.

The only thing she’d had in her head when she had barged into the locker room was how absurd it was that she never told him how she felt about him when it had been so obvious to her during those last months. She never once thought he didn’t know. Why else would have been his last words to her “Remember I love you”? He knew, he had to know.

But now, she couldn’t get out of her head certain things she couldn’t understand. All those times she had ignored him in the hallways, when she knew she was breaking his heart because she wouldn’t look at him or answer to him. When she had asked him for help to find Jackson.

And it wasn’t even the worst.

The worst had come after, after she had realized she couldn’t live her life without him.

Like the look she had thrown him, telling him she was done with teenage boys. _Jealousy, pure jealousy…_ How many times did he have to see her dating someone else? What gave her the right to treat him with so little consideration for his happiness when he always respected her choices? All those things left unsaid, those wasted seconds spent beating about the bush when she should have stopped the agony of those three little words that kept screaming with sore voices inside of her. She should have come with Scott to the hospital when Stiles had his MRI instead of drowning in her despair alone in her car. She could have raised her head a few centimetres higher to find his lips when she was nuzzling against his neck during movie nights. His breath would catch every time and his heart would beat harder. Why hadn’t it been enough?

A noise against her window broke her from her thoughts. Her heart skipped a beat when she pictured Stiles knocking on her window. He had been doing that a lot before the Wild Hunt. She stood up, knowing she shouldn’t expect too much but couldn’t help feeling a sting in her heart when she saw that the noise was nothing but a branch knocking against the window. The glass was cold against her forehead and she sighed again, watching as a little fog sprayed in front of her eyes and against her nose. She exhaled deep enough to draw a heart in the fog with a faraway look in her eyes. She immediately wiped it with her hand, rolling her eyes. _Pathetic…_

She walked back to her bed and grabbed her phone to recharge its battery. It buzzed with a message from Scott and she opened it with a beating heart. _You’re alright? I’m gonna spend the night at Stiles’s, you can join us if you want, all the others are gone._

Of course, she wanted to.

She bit her lips again, reopening the tiny wound from earlier.

Air, she needed some air to think properly or she would spend the rest of her days in her bedroom, staring at her phone and unable to make any decision. _Here lies Lydia Martin, genius, banshee, a girl with outstanding social skills but helpless when it comes to call Stiles Stilinski._

Almost without noticing, she plugged her phone in her external battery and went out. She still had her romper on and was just now noticing the beads of sweat dampening the fabric, making it stick to her skin. The wind cooled her moist skin, making her shiver. She closed her eyes, feeling the strokes of the wind against her damp neck, reminding her of Stiles’s fingers in her hair. The weight of his hand was still on her cheek, the scent of his body so close from hers was still flowing all around her and in her nostrils. Right at that moment, she would have given anything to have him in front of her again and wrap him in her arms, to feel his nose pressed into her hair and his body around her.

She took a few steps forward with bare feet, the grass tickling her toes and sat down on the edge of the pool. Finally, she could breathe, clear her head. The waves her feet created in the water were heightened by the soft light underneath her and were hypnotizing her. Her leggings were wet but she didn’t pay it any attention, letting the cold help her collecting her wits. She breathed deeply before taking her phone back in her hands.

If calling Stiles was too hard, she could at least call his home to make sure everything was alright. _That’s what friends do after all._ With a bit of luck, Noah would pick up and there wouldn’t be any problem.

Her brain realized her hands had already made the decision when she heard the first ring. It rang once, twice, thrice, the slow rhythm forcing her heart to slow its own beating until Noah’s voice rang in her ear.

_“Hello?”_

“Hello, this… This is Lydia.”

 _“Oh Lydia, is your… Is your mother alright?”_ She closed her eyes, nibbling at her lower lip. He knew very well that her mother wasn’t home. They all knew considering she had told them the day before when all the other were gone. She could only hope he was pretending because he didn’t want Stiles to know she had lied. Which meant he must have been not too far away, maybe listening…

“Er… Yeah, yes, she’s alright. She says hi by the way…” She immediately cursed herself for making things worst.

_“Well, I’m relieved. Did you need something? Do you want me to put Stiles on?”_

“No!” She suddenly crossed her legs and the cold water under her thigh made her startled. “No, no, I just called to check in.” She added in a controlled voice, surprising her with her own (apparent) calm.

“Everyone’s alright… Wait, he’s right there, I’ll put him on.”

“No, that’s –”

She could hear muffled noises and she closed her eyes, feeling that her heart was trying to break out of her ribcage. She slowly plunged her feet back in the water until her calved were immersed, thinking it would help her calm down but it only chilled her to the bones.

Then suddenly, his voice rang and all her worries vanished into thin air. Her eyes opened and her lips drew a genuine smile on her lips. The beating of her heart hadn’t slowed down but a nice warmth was spreading through her body, chasing the cold away.

_“Lydia?”_

“Stiles!” She couldn’t help a muffled laugh escaping from her lips. Her laugh made him laugh warmly and it helped her easing her nerves. “Are you feeling better?”

 _“Yes, a lot actually. It’s good to be home and not alone, you know?”_ There was an edge to his voice that wrenched her heart and not for the first time that night, she blamed herself for not staying by his side. _“Did you get Scott’s text?”_

“Yeah…”

 _“D’you wanna come?”_ The question was hesitant but full of hope. He hoped she would say yes, he wanted her to come. This simple realization made her heart beat even stronger than when she had felt his lips against hers. But she had to say no and the knowledge that she would break his heart again was enough to make her chest hurt.

“I… I can’t, I’m so sorry…” _I love you._ Her words were followed by a silence. An unbearable silence. Lydia laid on her back, letting her calves dangle in the water, letting the cold spread through her body, freeze her from the inside.

She heard him sigh and it felt like he was trying to release the pressure building up in his chest. _“I get it, don’t worry.”_

Lydia opened her mouth several time to articulate something, anything. But her mind was blank. Stiles seemed like he wanted to say something else but didn’t and Lydia uttered a silent cry of frustration before pulling herself together.

“Do you… Do you need something? I can… My mom went grocery shopping before she came back home and she bought way too much food for us two… I know your father will have a lot of work in the next few days so, if you need anything, I can come by and bring you food or something…” Lydia mouthed a silent _What??_ at her lie. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, shaking her head and hopping that no one would tell Stiles the truth.

 _“Thanks, but… I’m fine. But thank you for the offer.”_ His voice had lost its warmth and was almost stranger to her ear. It was a nightmare, Lydia could feel tears prickling her eyes.

“Alright,” she replied, trying to sound as friendly as she could while holding back her sobs. “Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything.”

_“Yeah… Have a good night then.”_

She thought he was going to hang up and it made her sit up, feeling the urge to say something, really anything.

“Stiles!”

_“Yeah?”_

“I’m… I’m so happy we got you back, I hope you know that, right?” _I love you so much!_

She heard him muffle a small laugh she wished she could record. _“Of course, I know. It’s really alright, Lydia, don’t worry.”_

“I’ll see you soon?”

He didn’t answer right away but when he did, his voice was full of hope again. _“Tomorrow?”_

“I’ll try, I promise. I call you tomorrow, okay?”

_“Yeah. Good night, Lydia.”_

“Good night.” _I love you, I love you…_

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles hung up and let his entire body fall on the couch, letting go of the phone next to him. He took his head in his hands and heaved a long sigh mingled with groans. He laid back on the couch and looked at Scott who was staring at him with a questioning look. Stiles wasn’t speaking, so Scott eventually opened his mouth.

“You know I can’t read your mind, right? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on. What have you done?”

“Me? Nothing!”

“Stiles,” Scott raised an eyebrow, looking at him with his worried-Alpha look, which made Stiles growl again. “When you got out of the school, your scents were completely all over each other. I almost thought you two had somehow merge and I would turn around and see some kind of double-headed creature…”

The idea made Stiles laugh but Scott continued talking. “And then, she doesn’t come here, she barely looks at you and now this? What did you tell her? What happened?”

“Nothing happened…” He let his words in mid-air a few seconds to face Scott’s knowing look the best he could… Which was, not good at all.

“Stiles, I can hear you trying to control your heart beat.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and sighed. “She kissed me… Or I kissed her, I don’t know. We kissed, it was the most beautiful moment in my life, the skies opened, the angels sang above us and now, she doesn’t wannna see me… She obviously regrets and I’ll die al – Ouch!”

He lifted his head, massaging the back of his head where Scott had slapped him. “Fragile human being here, remember?”

But Scott wasn’t laughing.

“You didn’t see her, Stiles. You didn’t see her when you weren’t here. I know it was hell for you but you have no idea how hard it has been for her too. She was the only one noticing something was wrong. She couldn’t remember you but she still missed you… She wasn’t missing something, she was missing _you_. I know she’ll explain it to you better than I do but… She saw you everywhere even though she had no idea what you looked like. I never saw her so crushed. Of course, I didn’t realize it then but I realize it now. When we heard your voice in the Jeep, when she saw you in that light… Each time, it was as if she was able to breathe again. So, if there is something I know, it’s that she doesn’t regret kissing you. Talk to her, you’ll see.”

Stiles had listened to him without uttering a single word, his stare lost in the distance. He cleared his throat and replied with a distant voice.

“When I realized she was the last person still remembering me right before they took me and I saw the look in her eyes…” The memory made him smile and he sighed, shaking his head. “As unbelievable as it sounds to me, I think a part of me knew she loved me. Maybe has done for a while.” He felt Scott giving him a pat on the back. If he had looked at him, he would have seen pride in his eyes but he was too far gone in his thoughts to pay attention. “But… first, this part is buried deep inside of me. I mean… We’re talking about a part that only comes out when there’s a death threat…” He tried to laugh but it turned into a sigh. “And second, I… If she’s not ready to accept it, who am I to say something? I can’t force her to do anything. I won’t. I’ll give her the time she needs if that’s what she wants. I’ll even say we acted on an impulse.”

Scott sighed, “Do whatever you want but don’t become a stranger, call her tomorrow, talk to her…”

“No,” he said shaking her head.

“Don’t you dare fail her now! She literally ripped open space and time to find you!” Scott’s voice wasn’t filled with anger but his firm tone made Stiles immediately react and he stood up.

“I’m not failing her!” Anger, frustration and tiredness were starting to get the better of him. He paced in front of Scott, running nervously his hands through his hair. “You don’t understand!” His voice was shaking and he cursed himself for being so aggressive with Scott who was just trying to help him.

“Oh, I understand!” Scott stood up to face him, raising his voice but unable to conceal how much his friend’s behaviour was hurting him. “I get that you’re scared, that you put her on a pedestal for so long and that now you know her and love her even more, you’re scared not to match up to her! You fear that you won’t be enough for her, you’re afraid to screw up, to hurt her. And despite what you say, I’m pretty sure you don’t realize how much Lydia loves you. And I’m not talking about a teenage crush, I’m talking about a love that almost had her committed because everyone thought she was crazy!” He stopped a few seconds, out of breath. Stiles started to open his mouth to reply something but closed it when he saw Scott looking daggers at him. “No, you let me finish.” He breathed deeply and when he resumed, his voice had lost its anger. “You know what she thought that entire time? She thought you knew she loved you. We all did actually when we started to believe her. But she never told you and that destroyed her when she realized it. The hardest for her wasn’t the pitiful looks everyone, even me, were throwing at her or the idea to never have you by her side ever again. It was the possibility that she could lose you without you knowing the truth! During those few minutes between the moment when we got our memories back and the moment she found you, I genuinely though it would kill her… I can’t even picture what would have happened if we couldn’t get you back and she was stuck with her memories…” Scott wiped his wet eyes with his sleeve and Stiles felt his heart stop. He laid a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort his friend. When he resumed, his voice was almost pleading. “You can’t let your fears stop you being happy. Because believe me, if you don’t do anything, there will come a time when those unsaid things will rot inside of you and make you wish you were dead instead of witnessing the result of all that shit you made. There will come a time when it’s too late…”

Stiles was motionless. Those words weighed too heavy to just disappear in the atmosphere. They looked at each other and Stiles eventually took Scott in his arms and they both sat down on the couch, feeling exhausted. Stiles knew that Allison’s ghost came to haunt Scott from time to time but it was the first time he had talked about her death since her funeral.

Scott let his tears roll freely down his cheeks and resumed. “I’d give anything to have a last conversation with Allison, you know? You have that chance, you can make things right…”

“Yeah,” Stiles answered, applying more pressure to Scott’s shoulder. “Yeah I know. But I don’t know if I can.”

There was nothing more to say and they barely heard Noah enter the room.

“Boys,” his soft voice made them lift their head. “Go to bed, we all need a good night’s sleep.”

They nodded, stood up and went upstairs to Stiles’s bedroom. Before his son entered his room, Noah laid a hand on his shoulder. “He’s right, you know…”

He nodded once again. “Good night, dad.”

Of course, Scott was right.

Deep down, he knew he wasn’t able to trust his feelings. Scott had seen right through him.

He still couldn’t believe in the possibility that Lydia Martin was in love with him.

 

* * *

 

 

Behind the wheel of his mother’s car, Scott heaved a long sigh. They hadn’t spoken about Lydia again this morning but their conversation from the night before was still haunting him. There was no way he would stand back while those two idiots were refusing to gave in for something as stupid as fear. Because something was sure: Lydia was just as terrified as Stiles.

At least, the pressure from the day before had vanished, helping him to face the situation with a clearer head. He would finish what Allison had started when she had made Lydia go to the winter formal with Stiles. That idea made him smile and he started the car.

He had pretended his mother needed his help with something to leave after breakfast and planned on dropping by Lydia’s house. Noah had told them the school would be closed for a week because of “damages”, giving him enough time to fix everything.

He stopped the car in front of Lydia’s house. She was carrying at least five bags from her car to her door, half disappearing behind them. When she heard the sound of his engine, she tried to crane her neck above the bags to see who was there. Her eyes opened wide when she saw Scott and she stayed put until he came up to her.

“Are you planning a hibernation?” He asked, taking three of her bags full of food and apparently laundry detergent.

“Thanks, and no.”

She stepped toward the door and paused to find her key. Scott noticed the bags under her red eyes. She hadn’t slept and must have been crying. This observation was enough to keep his teasing for himself. He followed her inside and laid everything in her kitchen while she went back to her car to bring some more bags. When she closed the door, there were eight full bags in front of him. Scott looked at her bustling without knowing what to say. He knew Stiles almost since they were babies, he knew how to handle him. Lydia on the other hand… She was something else. Her facial expression was neutral but everything else in her was betraying her distress. She eventually broke the silence.

“Did you need something?”

“No. I…” He thought about what he was going to say before deciding that he needed to wake her up. “I told Stiles I’d drop by to see you before going home.”

She almost dropped the glass of water she was about to serve him but pulled herself together at the last second. Scott noticed the tiny smile her lips drew and the jump her heart did when he mentioned his name. It made him smile until she turned around to look at him with a scared look.

“Did you leave him alone?”

“Well…” Her question and the terror in her eyes took him by surprise. “Yeah, his father had to leave to the police station, but…” he stumbled before she cut him off.

“Call him!”

She stepped forward and Scott thought for a second she was going to dissolve into tears. Then, his heart stopped when he realized she was afraid he would disappear again.

“Lydia…”

“Just call him! Please!”

There were no words able to soothe her so, he took his phone out and tried to smile at her. “Alright, alright.”

He dialled his number and put him on speaker, trying not to pay attention to Lydia’s erratic heart beats.

_“Scott? Did you forget something?”_

When they heard his voice, Lydia closed her hand covering her mouth into a fist and sighed, closing her eyes before going back to the sink. Scott cut short the conversation and caught Lydia by her forearm to make her turn around.

“See? He’s alright.”

“Mmmh mmh,” she said, nodding and biting her lips as if she was trying to muffle her sobs.

“I promise you, he won’t disappear again…”

“You can’t promise that,” she whispered and Scott almost didn’t recognize her voice.

“Lydia, what’s all that?” He pointed at the bags behind them. He had some sort of idea about what she was doing but thought it would be better to let her explain it herself.

She looked embarrassed and pulled at her lower lip with her teeth.

“I went grocery shopping. Can’t you tell?”

“Yes, but if I remember correctly, your mom won’t be home until graduation, which isn’t until a few weeks –”

“There are not for me,” she cut him off.

“Are they for Stiles?”

She stared at him with a look that would have frozen him a few years ago but only confirmed his suspicions while making him smile.

“Do not make fun of me McCall! I had an awful night…”

“I’m not, I promise!”

She sighed, raising her hands and letting them fall with a thud on the counter. “I felt so silly lying to him yesterday, telling him my mom had _bought too much food,_ ” she said rolling her eyes. “And I don’t want him to worry about those kinds of things when he just came back and when his father is gonna be at work. I didn’t sleep at all last night and this morning I left the house and went to the grocery store to buy everything he could need but I have no idea what to do next…”

She had spoken very fast, in a very Stiles-way and it would have made Scott laugh if she didn’t look so lost. Scott took her hand to force her to focus on him.

“I know!” she suddenly resumed, “Why don’t _you_ take everything to his house? Your mom could have given him some food… Moms do that, right? Or you could discreetly leave yogurts and vegetables in his fridge!” She froze. “I forgot to by some snacks. I thought about everything except what he would like… I have to go back.”

She started to look for her purse so, Scott grabbed her arm, trying to hold her back. “Lydia –“

“You can stay here, I’m not gonna be long, you can –“

“Lydia!” His tone was now as firm as the hold he had on her arm. He would maybe hurt her a little but he needed her attention. “You’re not stepping outside that house without telling me what the hell you’re doing!” He felt her shiver under his hand and for a moment, he thought he had gone too far but she turned around and looked at him with such despair that he sighed in relief and wrapped her in his arms. He felt her relax and tightened his embrace, whispering reassuring words in her ear. She eventually silently sobbed in his arms.

When she wasn’t shaking with unshed tears anymore, they sat down on the couch and Scott handed her a tissue. She was so tired that the words were jostling to come out of her mouth. She told him everything that had cluttered up her mind the night before. Scott listened to her, torn between the want to reassure her and to shake her up.

“I don’t deserve him, Scott. He wants to give me things that I don’t deserve and for once, I’d like to be worth it, you know? Match up with him.”

He didn’t know what to reply to that and told her the only words he thought should have been enough. “But he loves you!”

Lydia nibbled at her lips, staring at him and looking down. “I know…”

“And you love him!”

“Yes.” Her cheeks reddened at that little word and Scott realized it was maybe the first time she admitted it at loud without any hesitation. “I love him…” She let those words roll under her tongue a few more times, lingering with delight over the reactions they caused in her body.

When Lydia met Scott’s eyes, she not longer wore her despair on her face. Even if he could tell she was still racked by a silent anguish that prevented her mind to rest, her body seemed to have accepted the idea to let go.

He offered her one of his arms and she nuzzled against him without any hesitation. They talked a little more and Scott eventually agreed to take some of her grocery bags back at his place. Her voice had lost its edge and she kept yawning. After a few minutes of complete silence, Scott heard her breathe deeply and regularly. She had fallen asleep. As slowly as he could, he laid her down on the couch and wrapped her in a blanket.

He wrote her a note and left her with a smile. There was still some hope after all.

 

* * *

 

 

Lydia was absently giving her milkshake a stir with her straw. It was the third time this week she ended up in that diner. She used to come here with Stiles before he would disappear. They always ended up here when they would come back empty-handed from their late-night excursion spent looking for any suspicious supernatural sign. Her lips drew a treacherous smile at those memories. Stiles climbing up to her window in the middle of the night to take her with him in his ghost hunts. A modern version of the romantic movies’ clichés. They would never go back to sleep after that. They came back here, at that table. Lydia would order a strawberry milkshake and Stiles a chocolate peanut butter one and together, they would look at the sky lighten. Dark blue turning into grey, pink or orange. He would only take her back home to give her time to get ready for school, exhausted but her soul and heart more relaxed then after a spa day.

Since they got him back, she came back here every day at the same hour. It was late but it wasn’t the night yet so that the place wasn’t deserted and it allowed her to buried herself with delight in her memories without feeling the weight of loneliness. Since she got her memories back, she couldn’t help admiring them, admiring the perfection that was Stiles. She could spend hours playing them in her head over and over again.

She had seen him today. He hadn’t seen her but she had and she had thought her heart was going to explode. His beauty had captivated her, there was something graceful about the way he walked, about his entire being, some kind of charisma she could never get enough. Many times, she had asked herself how she had never noticed him. Even now, when she looked at old pictures, she found him beautiful. Something made him different and she had no idea what it was.

Earlier that day, as she was grocery shopping (again), she had seen him standing a few feet away from her. With the day light behind him, he cut a hypnotizing figure. He wasn’t looking in her direction and was running his hand behind his neck, seeming absorbed by the choices of hummus in front of him.

She remembered staying mesmerized by his pants hugging his ass tightly and his shirt riding up over his belt each time he would catch something higher on the shelves. She couldn’t help shivering when she had caught sight of his arms’ muscles, remembering how they felt around her.

For a second, she thought she would be able to go over to him but her feet wouldn’t move and his phone had rung. He had picked up and left.

Sighing, she grabbed her phone and texted him to ask him if he needed something. She had done that every night since they got him back.

And every night, she secretly hoped he would answer “You” but it never happened. Instead, he told her he still didn’t need anything and talked to her about a new video he had seen or an article he had found interesting. They went on debating about something meaningless for hours. It was still better than nothing.

Like every other night, she eventually left to go home with her imagination and memories as her only company.

 

* * *

 

 

Just three days and life would resume as if nothing ever happened. Stiles had thought he would have been able to see Lydia again at this point but they were soon going back to school and nothing had happened. Scott had told him about her but he was dying to see her, take her in his arms, breathe her in, taste her lips and tongue again… He shook his head, trying to cling on to what he felt was right and fair. He could never force her to do anything. He had to let her come to him, if that was what she wanted. His parents had always told him that having moral principles and sticking to them was the only way to make a good decision. He wouldn’t hurt her. He would never add his name to the long list of men who had forced Lydia into something.

He jumped when his phone buzzed with a message from Scott. His heart fell like a stone at the bottom of his stomach when he registered what his friend was telling him. Something was wrong with Lydia, she was in danger. Stiles frowned when he saw the address Scott gave him. She apparently was at the diner he used to go with her.

Without giving it any more thoughts, he put on his shoes in double quick time and jumped in his car, sick just to think about the reason anyone would want to arm his strawberry blonde perfection. Again.

He tried to call Scott but he wasn’t answering.

He parked his Jeep in front of the diner, noticing nothing special but still taking his bat under the back seats.

He burst inside the diner, bouncing the door off the wall. Only five tables were occupied. Everyone was giving him a glare with round eyes but he didn’t see anyone but the small strawberry blonde goddess who was staring at him in wonder, a milkshake in her hands. His heart was beating wildly, fearing that something would suddenly appear or that one of the clients would turn into a monster and jump on her. But his brain tried to rationalize. There wasn’t any threat, Scott had just found out where Lydia was hiding and had lured him here so they could talk. He moved closer to Lydia and grabbed his phone, texting Scott that he was the worst before putting it on mute. If they were going to talk he didn’t want to be bothered.

Lydia stood up when he came up. The beating of his heart was still wild but for a completely different reason. It took him a few seconds before he managed to meet her stare and what he saw froze him. She wasn’t just staring at him, she was devouring him with her eyes. Her pupils were moving really fast, as if she was trying to commit his features to her memory, lingering on each detail, each mole. Subconsciously, he moved even closer to her and mirrored her actions. They still hadn’t said anything to each other and yet, Stiles felt a boundless relief flow into him. He smiled, making her smile.

“Hi.”

Her voice was a little hoarse and she had to clear her throat, making Stiles melt and smile even wider. He felt the urge to cup her cheek and stroke her temple, her lips, take her in his arms and never let her go ever again.

Breathing in deeply, he begged for his body to not betray him and forced himself to look anywhere else than in her gorgeous eye. His stare fell on her milkshake that wasn’t pink as it usually was.

“No more strawberry milkshakes?” he asked frowning.

She pursed her lips, making that face Stiles found adorable. “I wanted to try your healthy mishmash for a change…”

“And what’s the verdict?” He smirked, looking knowingly at the glass (still almost full) and at the condensation that had started to print the shape of the glass on the wooden table. She pouted, looking a little disgusted and it made him laugh.

That noise seemed to break the ice because Lydia genuinely laughed and touched his arm to greet him, which turned into a long hug. Stiles felt her breathe deeply against his chest and closed his eyes. He buried his nose in her hair on the crown of her head and kissed her faintly, running his hand in her curls that were softer and even more beautiful than what he remembered. Lydia let out a sigh.

Stiles would have stayed there an eternity but her sigh seemed to wake her up and she tensed in his arms. He let her go and forced himself to sit on the chair opposite to her. She sat down as well and when the waitress came by, he ordered a strawberry milkshake, throwing a smile at Lydia.

They only exchanged stares for a little while, looking down each time the other would look up. Stiles could tell something was bothering her but for the first time, he was clueless about what is was.

When the waitress brought him his milkshake, he slid it toward Lydia and took hers, allowing their stare to finally meet. Lydia blushed and smiled, mouthing “thanks”.

They took a sip and Lydia broke the silence, giving a pointed look to his bat. “So, what are you doing here?”

Panic overwhelmed Stiles. Lydia must have read it all over his face because she hurriedly added, “I dont’t mean I’m not happy to see you! I’m actually really –“ She let her sentence stretch between them, pursing her lips as if she was looking for the right word. When she found it, she let it out in a smile, “happy”.

Stiles stuttered a little before answering. Not only, did he have absolutely no idea what he would tell her but to make things worse, her cheeks had flushed, bringing out the red of her full lips and the deep green of her eyes. At that moment, she was so beautiful, he thought he would stop breathing.

“I had a text from Scott, telling me you were in danger.” Apparently, his brain had chosen the truth.

She frowned, looking around her to spot him. “Really? How does he know I’m here? And why would he –“ her eyes opened wide. She must have reached the same conclusions Stiles had, making him grin and bite his lips, looking at her from below.

As it appeared, talking about Scott helped them start a conversation. They laughed, remembering funny stories, avoiding anything supernatural related to focus on their normal teenager experiences. Even when Stiles asked Lydia about what he had missed in class, they both did has if he had been sick. She offered to help him study before the school would start again and Stiles said yes, feeling his heart pulse stronger just at the idea of spending afternoons alone with her.

They had been talking for a while and their glasses were empty when the waitress came by to ask them if they wanted anything else.

Stiles looked at Lydia, “Are you hungry?”

“Kind of, yeah. And you?”

He nodded while adding, “we could eat here?”

Lydia smiled and ordered a Caesar salad with a margarita. Stiles met her stare above the menus and was surprised by the spark of shyness he found in them. He ordered the first burger he found on the menu with a margarita, asking himself not for the first time where all of this would lead them.

They had barely touched their drinks but alcohol seemed to help them already, relaxing both of them enough to talk about the last three months. Lydia had asked him how he was dealing with his return and if he really felt alright. He told her everything. He had already told everything to his father and to Scott, making them understand the terror he had felt over there, how much he’d had to struggle to stay awake. With time passing by, the details were blurry but he still remembered how he had felt.

Telling Lydia about it was something else, it seemed to bring him peace. As if she was the last step to completely get his soul back. She listened to him in a reverent silence, lapping up his words and nodding from time to time or biting her lips when she was scared for him. She would sometime stare at him with such intensity that Stiles had to stop talking to take her in.

By the end, he felt a weight on his hand and realized Lydia had took it in hers, stroking his skin from the tip of her fingers. How long had she been doing that? Did she realized what she was doing? Stiles didn’t dare moving but his stare fell on their hands and he felt Lydia tense again. Without giving it too much thoughts, he turned his hand around to have her palm against his and stroke her skin from the ball of her thumb to her wrist. Her muscles relaxed and his skin erupted in goose bumps when he felt her fingers mirroring his actions.

They were both hypnotized by their hands. It took someone yelling in the restaurant to break them out of their trance. Lydia quickly withdrew her hand. She looked so uncomfortable that Stiles felt his guts twist. How could he do such things when she clearly wanted to put as much distance as she could between them? He took a deep breath to give him enough strength to do the only thing left to do and stood up.

“I’m sorry, Lydia, I… I’m gonna go. Call me if you’re still okay to help me catch up…” He pointed at their plates and glasses, “that’s on me, don’t worry.”

He started to move toward the counter, praying every god that ever existed to hear her stand up and feel her hand on his arm. But it didn’t happen. Instead, he felt all the air being pulled out of his lungs when she rushed toward him to put her arms tight around his waist. She leaned her forehead between his shoulder blades and whispered something that sounded like “Please, don’t leave me!”

He managed to slowly turn in her arms and stared in silence at her face buried in his shirt. He delicately cupped her cheeks to raise her head. He could feel her heart beating as strong as his against his chest and it gave him enough courage to hush his brain. With his thumbs, he outlined her lips, feeling her entire body trembling against his. Keeping her eyes open, she grabbed his shirt in her fists to pull him closer and to steady herself.

Their noses brushed and his lips grazed her gorgeous dimples around her smile. He was dying to kiss her, unable to take his eyes off of her parted and trembling lips that seemed to beg him to make them his. He was getting drunk on her breath mingling with his own and on the soft noises that escaped her mouth. But once again, the bustle around them forced them to come back to reality.

Stiles’s stare fell on their barely touched plates and their half full glasses, knowing he wouldn’t be able to swallow anything else.

“Do you wanna go?” the question had left his lips before he even made the decision.

“Yeah… I’m not hungry anyway.”

They payed and Lydia took his hand to lead him outside, where they found a tree out of sight. The diner’s muffled music still reached their ears through a half-opened window. The Moon in the sky was nowhere to be seen, allowing the stars to shine as bright as they wanted and the soft light casting the delicate shadows of Lydia’s features against her pale skin. She looked like a painting.

He felt her fingers stroke the back of his hand beside her and he turned it around to intertwine their fingers and remained silent as she seemed to be looking for her words.

“I shouldn’t have,” she eventually blurted out.

“You shouldn’t have what?”

“Stopped you. I should have let you leave if that’s what you wanted, I’m sorry. We just got you back and… I haven’t been really there for you, I’d understand if you’d want to avoid me. You have every right to hate me.”

Hear her talk like that was breaking his heart, her voice was barely louder than a whisper and he hated that. But he couldn’t help letting out a laughing sigh at her last words. He turned her head to look at her.

“Hate you? I don’t hate you Lydia, I _love_ you, I thought I made that clear last time.” The words had escaped his mouth with such ease that it took him aback for a moment. He realized she hadn’t replied anything and added “But I’m not expecting anything from you, that’s what I tried to tell you when you… found me.” At the thought of their kiss, an almost unbearable warmth spread through his body, making his hands sweat. But he felt Lydia’s grasp tightening. Turning his gaze in front of him to gather his strengths, he resumed. “I get it you know. If you want to keep your distances, I can hear it. I know that sometimes, fear and adrenaline can make people act crazy. I don’t want you to believe that you owe me anything. You’re allowed to regret it and I would accept any decision you take.”

Silence stretched. Stiles only heard his heart echoing in his ribcage, filling his ears with its unbearable tick tock. Then, Lydia talked.

“I don’t deserve you.”

It didn’t occur to Stiles right away why Lydia would say something like that but then, the realization that Lydia actually loved him just as much as he loved her and that she felt like she wasn’t worthy of him hit him like a bolt of lightning piercing through the night. Many emotions were trying to get his attention inside of him but the only thing he managed to articulate was a faint “What?”

“You deserve someone better than me,” she continued, each word feeling like a nail she would knock in his chest. “You’re one of the good guys, Stiles. You deserve to be with someone good and it wouldn’t be fair to you to keep you for myself. I’d only hold you back.”

“You… Do you mean you’d like to be with me?” It was the only question Stiles could sort out from the million of them jostling in his brain.

Lydia sighed, “of course, I do. But that’s not the point… The point is, you deserve to be with someone as good as you, as kind as you.”

“How can you think something like that? Lydia,” he turned completely to look at her, “you’re a good person. You always put your friends first, you do whatever you can to help your mother even when she’s _never_ there for you, you always spend Christmas with your dad knowing he’s a jerk… I’m sorry but it’s true, he clearly doesn’t realize how lucky he is to have you as his daughter! I don’t know how you became such a strong and kind woman with those two and the upbringing they gave you…” He saw her laugh faintly and bite her lips so he continued. “That’s the truth! Look, you could kill people only with the sound of your voice and what do you do instead? You learn how to control it to help people. I mean, you’re literally a harbinger of death and you blame yourself when you can’t use your abilities to save people. I don’t know a lot of harbinger of death but I doubt they all do that… And let’s not forget about the most important thing.” He gazed at her, wiping a tear on her cheek and letting himself drown a little in her stare that reflected his own. He couldn’t tell if the love he saw in it came from his eyes or hers. “Even when you played the nitwit and stayed with the most popular girls in school, you didn’t humiliate me once… Anyone could tell I was obsessed with you, they all knew that the poems I wrote for the English class were about you. And I knew that most of the jokes I read on the bathroom doors were about me. But you never made fun of me. You ignored me but you were never mean. And I’m pretty sure it must have caused you some problems with your so-called _friends…_ ”

When she bit her lower lip with her teeth, he knew he was right.

“You’re not who you think you are, Lydia,” he resumed, running his finger on her lip. “You’re so much better than anything you can imagine.”

“Do you really think that?”

She was gazing at him with her eyes sparkling with hope and Stiles couldn’t help but be reminded of the night of the winter formal when she had thrown him that same look after he had called her beautiful.

With a smirk, he stood up and hold out his hand. “You wanna dance?”

Her laugh filled the night with the most beautiful melody he had ever heard. “I love your laugh,” he told her to echo his thought and thinking that if she needed to hear him say what he liked about her, he would gladly comply.

She leaned on his hand to stand up and put her hands around his neck, coming as close to him as she could. His own hands brushed her waist before holding it more firmly, making her rest her head against his chest. They swayed a little at the slow rhythm filtering through the window.

“I truly think you’re a good person. You shouldn’t doubt yourself,” he whispered grazing his lips against her temple, finally answering her question.

“And you,” she lifted her head a little to look at him. “You shouldn’t doubt that I love you.”

He had always thought that the moment he would hear those words from her, his heart would stop beating. But it didn’t. It kept beating as strong and as steadily as before and he felt a little dizzy. He closed his eyes to give him time to swallow the lump in his throat. When he opened them again, he held her gaze and opened his mouth, asking her with a hoarse voice, “can… Can I kiss you?”

She laughed underneath her breath, “Yes, please.”

Stiles lightly brushed his mouth against hers, letting Lydia plant soft kisses on each of his lip. That kiss was the opposite of the two others they had shared and it felt right. Their will to slow time down echoed in the sweetness of their movements. They had all the time in the world now and would take it to explore each other. They kept planting kisses on each other’s mouth and at one point, Lydia nibbled a little harder at his lips and Stiles opened his mouth, making her moan and kissing him hungrily. He tightened his grip on her waist, overwhelmed with the sensation of her tongue doing wonders in his mouth.

Out of breath, Lydia broke the kiss to brush his cheek with her lips, trailing kisses up until she reached his ear. “I love you, Stiles. I’ve loved you for so long… I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner, I’m sorry I never told you… I love you so much.”

Stiles kissed her one more time, barely brushing his lips over hers. “I love you too, Lydia.” He repeated the words over and over, alternating with kisses on her nose, cheeks, forehead and lips.

They eventually sat under the tree, Lydia leaning against Stiles’s torso. They let the diner’s music lull them and talked, finally at peace.

There weren’t any cars left on the parking lot when they drove back to Lydia’s house to have a midnight picnic with the rest of “Mrs. Martin’s grocery shopping”. They talked and kissed leisurely until the stars would start vanishing in the sky.

Stiles woke up on his back in the early hours with Lydia’s head on his chest and her arm circling his waist. Without moving too abruptly, he grabbed his phone to check the time and saw a text from Scott “ _Am I the worst, REALLY? ;)_ ” he couldn’t help his chest shaking from his laugh, which woke Lydia up.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said after hearing her groan.

“It’s alright,” she yawned, kissing his neck before laying her head over his chest again. “There are worst ways to wake up. What made you laugh?”

“Scott. He thinks he’s so clever…” She laughed again, his shirt muffling the sound. He slowly massaged her temple, feeling her going back to sleep.

A bird above them made him look up to the sky. The sun was slowly rising, bringing beautiful orange colours to the pink and light blue. It suddenly felt like he had already seen that scene. Not like a _déjà vu_ , more like the memory of a distant dream.

Slowly, it came back to him. He had more and more troubles remembering what he had lived _over there_ but when he focused, he could remember some things. Some moments he had spent staring at the wall, letting himself drown in the same lethargy as the other, driven by despair.

He remembered his visions and smiled. Lydia leading him to the safety of a garden, her voice singing in his ears. He had seen her laying down and peacefully asleep next to him, her breathing following his own. As if she was making sure he wouldn’t lost himself, make sure he wouldn’t drown too long in that darkness that destroyed everything.

Even in that place that existed neither in time nor in space, she had followed him and had brought him back to the surface. She had overcome the universe with her love for him as her only weapon.

And then, it hit him. _She_ had been the reason why he kept waking up.

He realized that in those moments, when everything seemed lost, Lydia’s voice kept repeating inside of him that he would come home. He had always known he would come home. Back to her. It had helped him keep his hopes alive.

On his chest, Lydia’s hand slipped over his heart and Stiles took her fingers in his hand. He could feel her heart pumping under her wrist.

Following the beating of his own heart.

Anchoring him.

The bird flew over him again as if it was making sure they were alright and then left toward the rising sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)  
> Please, don't hesitate to leave a comment to let me know what you think!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Falling Slowly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17396828) by [WhiteDahlia13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteDahlia13/pseuds/WhiteDahlia13)




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